Évelina's Râpure Pie

I had lots of people confronting me to do something about it, says Saulnier. They didn’t want to see the product go.

In the early years of the business, Saulnier’s mother sold the potato-based dish at home on weekends, charging customers 50 cents a plate. Sometimes, she even provided live music for diners as they ate. Over time, she also began selling her rappie pie in stores from Weymouth to Yarmouth. But beginning in 2001, she cut back to focus on selling it out of her home.

As the pressure built on Saulnier to do something about the company, he crunched numbers and met with professional advisors to determine if it would be worth leaving his job with the provincial
government.The numbers and the advisors said it would.

Saulnier officially took over the company in 2007 and decided it needed a new production facility to increase production. He had the funds to build a 3,000 square foot facility, but not the money
to stock it with equipment.I was pretty much at the end of the funds I had available, so that’s when I went to see the CBDC, says Saulnier.

The CBDC approved a loan to purchase the equipment. Without it, Saulnier says the company wouldn’t have changed. I would have been pretty much stuck in keeping the business at the level
where my mother had it compared to where it is today, he says.

Today, the company is once again busy selling its product in stores, including many Sobeys locations throughout Nova Scotia. It is also served at hospitals and schools in the Southwest Nova Scotia region.

The company’s success can be attributed to a few things, including its product quality. The recipe was my great-grandmother’s recipe and it goes back to the late 1800s,says Saulnier. The
company still adheres to that recipe and every batch is taste tested. If we don’t like it, we won’t sell it,says Saulnier.

No preservatives are used in making the rappie pie, the potatoes come from the same farmer his mom used. The chicken used isn’t cubed or processed; it is meat the company cooks and cuts up on site.

Big plans are in store for the company’s future. It plans to build a federally inspected production facility so it can export to anywhere in the world. The blueprints are being drawn up
and construction could begin as early as spring 2012.

The company employs six people full-time year round. This makes Saulnier proud, but what makes him even prouder is that he gets to share his family’s rappie pie with others. It’s very rewarding for me, he says. And that is a legacy even a mother could love.